{"id":145,"date":"2018-02-05T12:14:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T12:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/?p=145"},"modified":"2018-03-22T06:03:01","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T06:03:01","slug":"of-pokot-bandits-and-ethnic-profiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/2018\/02\/05\/of-pokot-bandits-and-ethnic-profiling\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t turn Pokots into bandits"},"content":{"rendered":"

You will never read or hear in a Kenyan news report that\u00a0police in Nairobi killed three suspected Kikuyu thugs.\u00a0Or that, two suspected Luhyia bandits died instantly\u00a0after they broke into a shop in Kangemi and drank\u00a0poison they mistook for chang\u2019aa. What would it matter\u00a0if the suspected thugs were Kikuyu, Ogiek or\u00a0de-ethnicized millenials? And how would police tell the\u00a0ethnicity of the suspects, anyway?<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you ever heard a news report that officers from\u00a0the Kenya Ethics and AntiCorruption Commission\u00a0arrested four Kamba policemen suspected of taking\u00a0bribes on Kisii-Kilgoris road?<\/span><\/p>\n

Or that suspected Luo robbers broke into a bank in Nyeri\u00a0and made away with an unknown amount of money?\u00a0Yet quite often, you hear or read about \u201cPokot bandits\u201d\u00a0or \u201cTurkana cattle rustlers\u201d. What is the point of this\u00a0ethnic profiling?<\/span><\/p>\n

On 13 January 2018, the Star carried a story titled,\u00a0\u201cNanok takes peace, security talks to Uganda after\u00a0Turkana attacks\u201d by Heboun Etyang. A paragraph in that\u00a0story read as follows:<\/span>
\n \u201cOn November 4 last year, nine people including three\u00a0police officers and the Turkana East education director\u00a0were killed at Lomelo near Kapedo by suspected Pokot\u00a0bandits. The bandits ambushed their AP vehicle while\u00a0they were on patrol.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sounds Ok, doesn’t it?<\/span><\/p>\n

The final paragraph read: \u201cOn December 19, 19 people\u00a0died in an accident at Loruk on Marigat-Kapedo road.\u00a0It is believed the accident resulted from an attack by\u00a0Pokot bandits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What does it matter whether the suspected bandits were\u00a0Pokot or whatever?<\/span><\/p>\n

Days later on 18 January 2018, the Star had yet another\u00a0story titled, \u201c5,000 children fearful of bandits, stay away\u00a0from Baringo schools”, this time written by Joseph\u00a0Kangogo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe pupils were among more than 800 Ilchamus\u00a0residents who were displaced after Pokot bandits\u00a0launched a retaliatory attack on Mukutani Full Gospel\u00a0Church on March 14 last year\u201d, Kangogo reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

On January 21, Kangogo filed another report for the\u00a0Star headlined, \u201cPokot woman, two children killed in\u00a0Kapedo by suspected Turkana bandits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While the journalist may have been sure that the woman\u00a0and her two children in this very sad incident were Pokot,\u00a0how did he conclude that the perpetrators were\u00a0Turkana bandits? It is not indicated that they were ever\u00a0arrested and their ethnicity determined yes Kangogo said:\u00a0\u201cLast week on Sunday, a Turkana man was shot dead by\u00a0suspected Pokot bandits while fetching firewood in\u00a0Kapedo.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You will never read or hear in a Kenyan news report that\u00a0police in Nairobi killed three suspected Kikuyu thugs.\u00a0Or that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,6,2,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-fake-news","category-letter-to-the-editor","category-weekly-newsletter","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaobserver.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}